Cricket legend Michael Holding lashed out at the International Cricket Council (ICC) for “censorship” after he was asked to tone down his views on umpiring on-air.
This comes after Holding slammed the match officials for their "atrocious" umpiring during the World Cup clash between Australia and West Indies on 6 June.
Hitting back at the “censorship”, Holding said “commentators are being more and more compromised by controlling organisations to the point of censorship.”
According to a report by The Times of India, Holding in his reply to a letter by the ICC sent to him on 7 June, said, “I do not intend to go down that road”.
The production head for ICC’s rights partner Sunset & Vine Asia, Huw Bevan, wrote an email, marking his colleagues in the production company on the mail, the report said.
Beven, in the email, highlighted that ICC TV’s duty is to reflect the values and “not to cast doubt or negative judgement on anything associated with the tournament in our coverage”.
The email, which TOI had an access to, said “inherently in live television, there are occasions when on field decisions cause reason for discussion or debate, but as ICC TV host broadcasters, our (Sunset &Vine) duty is not judge or highlight mistakes.”
During the Australia-West Indies match, several umpiring howlers were made as West Indies lost by 15 runs at Trent Bridge.
Both on-field umpires, Chris Gaffaney and Ruchira Palliyaguruge, ended up getting two decisions overturned per head, with the New Zealand official also failing to notice a very obvious no-ball call, the ball before Mitchell Starc got Chris Gayle out.
“I am sorry but the umpiring in this game has been atrocious. For one, even when I was playing and they were not as strict as they are now, you were allowed one appeal. You don’t appeal two, three, four times to the umpire. They(umpires) are being intimidated (by Australia’s appealing), that means they are weak. This has been an atrocious bit of umpiring by both,” Holding had said after the match.
He alleged that Palliyaguruge and Gaffaney caved in to the pressure created by prolonged and repeated appeals by the Australian team members.
Bevan in the email wrote “we had an incident in the (WI vs Aus) match where we highlighted on air during an analysis segment (which Holding denies) that a no-ball should have been called”. He added “this is exactly the kind of thing we need to avoid putting on air”.
He further said “before the event, we went to great pains to explain to you all as senior production and commentary personnel of the need to avoid this kind of thing. It’s critical for us that we should never amplify umpires’ mistakes by giving airtime to those incidents nor show the umpires in bad light. We should also be very careful not to look to create controversy around an event or match at any time.”
He added that it was a strong reminder to everybody involved to “uphold the strongest of standards in our coverage”.
‘Cricket Should be Held to Higher Standard’: Holding Writes Back
Holding wrote back “if those umpires yesterday were FIFA officials, they would have been told to pack their bags and head home. They would not have been given another World Cup game to officiate. As a former cricketer, I think cricket should be held to a higher standard. Is the objective to protect the umpires even when they do a bad job?”
He added “I am sorry, but I am not going to be a part of that. Please let me know if I should be heading back to my home in Newmarket instead of heading to Cardiff because I don’t agree with what is being suggested here and happy not being part of it.”
He also highlighted that he was the only commentator to have received the email.
(With inputs from The Times of India)
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